Rolling mills



y 9, 1968 c. STURDY ROLLING MILLS Filed Jan. 27, 1966 INVENTOR Clifforl Sturdy BY 4 MM ATTORNEY United States Patent Oflice 3,391,562 Patented July 9, 1968 3,31,562 ROLLING MILLS Clifford Sturdy, Chesterfield, England, assignor to Davy and United Engineering Company Limited, Sheffield, England Filed Jan. 27, 1966, Ser. No. 523,427 Claims priority, application Great Britain, Feb. 4, 1965, 4,823/65 Claims. (Cl. 72235) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE The invention is concerned with rolling mill trains for simultaneously rolling a plurality of parallel strands of rod. The invention provides a train comprising a plurality of adjacent stands each having a plurality of pairs of rolls one pair for each strand to be rolled. In each stand the axes of adjacent pairs of rolls make an angle with one another, and the axes of the roll pairs of adjacent stands which act on the same strand make an angle with one another. This arrangement allows a single gear box -for each stand to drive at least two pairs of rolls and in the preferred embodiment for rolling four parallel strands, only three 'line shafts and three sets of gear boxes are required.

This invention relates to rolling mill trains and particularly, though not exclusively, to rolling mill trains for the multi-s-trand rolling of metallic rod.

In the rolling of rod it is necessary for successive roll stands to be arranged with the axes of each roll pair arranged parallel to the plane of but at 90 to the axes of the preceding roll pair in order to eliminate the necessity of twister guides between the stands.

Previously, multi-strand rolling of metallic rod has been carried out between a number of pairs of co-operating rolls arranged in tandem, each pair of rolls having a plurality of grooves of appropriate form to accommodate the required number of rod strands and being rotatably supported at each end in chocks mounted in a housing, With this arrangement, the accessibility of the rolls is greatly restricted on each side by the housings, and the strands being rolled, particularly the middle strands, are almost completely inaccessible. Furthermore, the operation of changing the rolls of the stands is unnecessarily time-consuming largely due to the rolls being supported at each end.

In an other previously disclosed arrangement proposed for rolling two strands of rod simultaneously in two rolling trains, in both the vertical and horizontal stands of the train the two pairs of co-operating rolls are arranged one above the other, one roll of each pair being driven from a common motor by a suitable gear box, each of the other rolls of each pair being driven by an individual motor. In this arrangement the rolls are supported in a cantilever manner with bearings at one side of each roll. To some extent this arrangement eased the accessibility problem, and also allowed for individual control of the roll gap for each strand. The arrangement, however, requires three driving motors for each four rolls, and the disposition of the motors for the individually driven rolls still hampers access to at least one roll of each pair.

In a further previously proposed arrangement a single strand rolling mill train has all its rolls mounted in a cantilever manner on shafts driven from a plurality of gear boxes, alternate gear boxes being driven by a line shaft coupled to them. Thus, two line shafts are required for this arrangement which provides for rolling only a single strand at one time.

In one aspect the present invention provides a rolling mill train for the simultaneous rolling of at least two strands of metallic rod, in which train one pair of cooperating work rolls is provided for each strands at each stand, and the axes of alternate roll pairs for each strand are arranged in a parallel plane but at an angle to the axes of the preceding roll pair, the drive for all the rolls being provided by three line shafts, or in the case of rolling two strands by the line shafts, through a plurality of gear boxes.

The axes of each roll pair may be arranged at to the axes of the preceding roll pair.

In another aspect the present invention provides a rolling mill train for the simultaneous rolling of at least two strands of metallic rod, in which train one pair of cooperating work rolls is provided for each strand at each stand, and the axes of alternate roll pairs for each strand are arranged in a parallel plane but at an angle to the axes of the preceding roll pair, at least one roll pair from each train being driven from a common gear box.

In a further aspect the present invention provides a rolling mill train for the simultaneous rolling of at least two strands of metallic rod, in which train one pair of co-operating work rolls is provided for each strands at each stand, and the axes of alternate roll pairs for each strand are arranged in a parallel plane but at an angle to the axes of the preceding roll pair, and in which train alternate roll pairs for each strands are driven from a first series of gear boxes arranged in line, the remaining roll pairs being driven from a second series of individual gear boxes.

The individual gear boxes may be arranged in tow lines one on each side of the first series.

Each of the rolls in each roll pair may be driven from a pair of intermeshing pinions in its driving gear box, in

which case the lines of the gear boxes are preferably arranged so that the distance between any gear box and the rolls it drives is uniform in each case. In this way, the drive means from each gear box to each roll pair are identical.

In yet another aspect the invention provides a rolling mill train for the simultaneous rolling of four strands of metallic rod, in which train one pair of co-operating work rolls is provided for each strand at each stand, and the axes of alternate roll pairs for each strand are arranged in a parallel plane but at an angle to the axes of the preceding roll pair, and in which train alternate r-oll pairs for each strand are driven from a first series of gear boxes arranged in line, the remaining roll pairs being driven from a second series of gear boxes arranged in two lines one on each side of the first series, the roll pairs for each strand being arranged in two pairs one pair on each side of the series of gear boxes. With this arrangement the rolls of all four strands are easily accessible.

In each of the above cases the rolls themselves are preferably secured to a shaft mounted in a cantilever manner in the rolling mill housing, so that roll changing is greatly facilitated.

The following description relates to the accompanying drawings which are given by way of example only, and which show diagrammatically one arrangement for driving a rod mill finishing train according to the invention.

FIGURE 1 shows the arrangement for driving the eight adjacent roll pairs of two adjacent stands in the train, and

FIGURE 2 shows the pinion stand used for driving each of the series of gear boxes from a single motor.

In FIGURE 1 roll pairs 11, 12, 13 and 14 of one roll stand are arranged in a common plane approximately at the corners of a square, pairs 11 and 12 having their axes normal to one another being driven from an upper gear box 15 by drive shafts 16 and 17 respectively, and pairs 13 and 14 having their axes normal to one another 3 being driven from a lower gear box 18 by drive shafts 19 and 20 respectively. Roll pairs 21, 22, 23 and 24 of a second adjacent roll stand are also arranged in a common plane at the corners of the same square, adjacent roll pairs having their axes at right angles to one another, and are driven from a common central gear box 25 at the center of the square by drive shafts 26, 27, 28 and 29 respectively. It will be seen that, for each strand, the axes of each roll pair of one stand are at 90 to the axes of the roll pairs of the other stand.

Each gear box has a pair of intermeshing mill pinions 30 for each pair of drive shafts, one of these pinions being driven by a bevel gear 31 engaging with a larger bevel gear 32, which is driven by a line shaft, not shown. The line shafts are driven from a pinion stand such as shown in FIGURE 2, which has line shaft pinions 33, 34 and 35 with interrneshing idling gears 36. The center line shaft pinion 34 is driven by a suitable motor not shown.

The mill train described rolls four strands each of which is rolled by eight roll pairs so that the arrangement shown in FIGURE 1 will be repeated four times, the four gear boxes 25 driving the roll pairs of stands 1, 3, 5 and 7 in each train, the four gear boxes 15 driving roll pairs of stands 2, 4, 6 and 8 rolling the two upper strands, and four gear boxes 18 driving roll pairs of stands 2, 4, 6 and 8 rolling the two lower strands.

In an alternative line shaft drive arrangement, each line shaft is driven by its own motor and there is no mechanical connection between the line shafts. Synchronization is achieved by the electrical control gear of the motors.

The drive shafts 16, 17, 19, 20, 26, 27, 28 and 29 are provided with suitable flexible couplings not shown.

The roll-pass between each roll pair is necessarily displaced from the axis of the mill pinions 30 driven by the bevels 31. Because of this, in order to make the length of drive shafts necessary for each roll pair equal, the gear boxes 15 and 18 are displaced to the left and right respectively from the plane of the gear box 25, and the center roll-pass of each upper strand is displaced to the left a similar amount.

It will be seen that with the arrangement shown, the accessibility of each strand and roll pair is greatly improved over known rod mill trains, and furthermore one operator can control two strands. There is also a considerable amount of saving in the mill floor area required.

I claim:

1. A rolling mill train comprising first and second adjacent rolling mill stands, each stand having four pairs of rolls, each pair in each stand being positioned to roll a different one of four parallel strands of rod, the rolls of each pair having parallel axes which are at an angle to the axes of the adjacent pairs in the same stand, and to the axes of those roll pairs of adjacent stands positioned to roll the same strand, said first stand having a first gear box connected to drive all the rolls of said first stand and the second stand having second and third gear boxes, each connected to drive two pairs of rolls in said second stand.

2. A rolling mill train as claimed in claim 1 comprising at least two of said first stands and two of said second stands with said first and second stands positioned alternately with respect to each other, with said first, second and third gear boxes respectively positioned in first, second and third lines parallel to the rod strands.

3. A rolling mill train as claimed in claim 2 in which the lines in which the second and third gear boxes are positioned lie on opposite sides of a vertical plane containing the line of said first gear boxes and bisecting the angle between the driveshafts driven from said first gear boxes.

4. A rolling mill train according to claim 1 wherein each of the rolls in each roll pair is driven from a pair of intermeshing pinions in its driving gear box.

5. A rolling mill train according to claim 1 in which the gear boxes are arranged so that the distance between any gear box and the rolls it drives is uniform.

6. A rolling mill train according to claim 1 in which each roll is secured to a shaft mounted in a cantilever manner.

7. A rolling mill train according to claim 1 wherein the axes of each roll pair are arranged at to the axes of the preceding roll pair.

8. A rolling mill train according to claim 1 in which the roll pairs of each stand are arranged approximately at the corners of a square and the first gear box is situated approximately at the center of the square.

9. A rolling mill train according to claim 1 in which the first, second and third gear boxes are driven by first, second and third line shafts.

10. A rolling mill train according to claim 9 in which the line shafts are driven from a pinion stand.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS Re. 15,692 l0/l923 Brock 72-249 2,024,185 12/1935 Rober 72-249 2,094,920 10/ 1937 Inslee 72-249 3,308,644 3/1967 Von Dorp 72-249 CHARLES W. LANHAM, Primary Examiner. 

